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Year: 2021
Published in: Journal of Rural Studies
Cited as: Artur Steiner, Francesca Calò, Mark Shucksmith,
Rurality and social innovation processes and outcomes: A realist evaluation of rural social enterprise activities,
Journal of Rural Studies, 2021, ISSN 0743-0167, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.04.006.
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Abstract
Although increasingly prominent in research, policy and practice, little is known about social innovation in a rural context. To address this knowledge gap, our paper explores how rurality might affect the social innovation process. Drawing on 68 interviews carried out with beneficiaries, service providers and external stakeholders of a rural social enterprise initiative in Scotland, the paper adopts a realist evaluation theory (Pawson and Tilley, 1997) approach combined with Calò et al.’s (2019) social innovation analytical framework to identify Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations for rural social innovation. The findings highlight that specific characteristics of rural places can act as stimuli of social innovation. Positive outcomes of a social innovation can potentially be rooted in rural peculiarity and its problematic context. Push factors, born out of necessity, lead to reactive social innovation and pull factors, derived through harnessing perceived opportunities in the environment, lead to proactive social innovation. Importantly, push factors do not undermine the establishment of social innovation – indeed, they can actually promote social innovation and strengthen its validity. The paper also shows that outcomes of the social innovation process might not be specific to rural areas. Instead, the pathway to the desired outcomes is conditioned by rural factors, shaping the contexts and mechanisms of rural social innovation. As different rural locations might have different resources to address local challenges, social innovation processes vary from one case to another, although the challenges being addressed might be similar. As such, rural social innovation policies should not be ‘over prescribed’. Context creates both challenges and solutions and influences the type and form of mechanisms used to achieve a desirable social innovation outcome.
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Future Research
We recognise some limitations of our study and resultant future research avenues. Firstly, we have explored one social innovation initiative and one rural location and, as such, our findings should be verified, or challenged, in future rural studies. Secondly, exploring a similar initiative in an urban area could build an understanding of what would happen to the social innovation without the rural contextual characteristics. An urban-rural comparative study would also help to understand which of the two contexts provides more fertile ground for successful social innovation processes.
